My first grade teacher was the first person to tell my parents that I should be tested for A.D.D. Almost every year of elementary school I had a hearing test. I thought it was normal and something everyone had to do and I was actually proud of being so good at them. Later my parents told me I was the only one getting those tests because my teachers all thought I was hard of hearing. They would speak to me or ask me a question and I would just ignore them, which made them think I couldn’t hear them. This became even more confusing when I received almost perfect results on my many hearing tests. Eventually my parents had to have the awkward conversation and tell them that I could hear them fine, but if I didn’t think what they were saying was important then I was just going to continue doing what I was doing and acting like I couldn’t hear them.
I genuinely have no memory of ignoring my teachers which makes me think that I wasn’t ignoring them. I was always zoning out and daydreaming that it just didn’t register when they were talking to me. This still happens, although not nearly as often.
Eventually I was tested and diagnosed, although I didn’t start taking medication for it until my sophomore year of high school.
Whenever I tell people I have A.D.D the first thing they say is, “but you’re always so calm!” I am not hyperactive, honestly I am the complete opposite. My brain is a fantasy world of thoughts and ideas and it is incredibly easy for me to slip into it and disappear during an uninteresting lesson or a long car ride. When I’m exploring my labyrinth of a brain, I sit calmly and– I’m told– get a blank look on my face.
There’s a lot of assumptions about people who have A.D.D, but I’ve learned it’s different for everyone. I tend to zone out and get distracted by my own mind while other people may get distracted by the things around them. I tend to get distracted during something I’m not interested in, like math class; but when I’m doing something I enjoy, like reading a really good book, I’m laser focused to the point that I lose track of what’s going on around me. A lot of people with A.D.H.D have trouble sitting still for something like reading.
Taking medication basically gave me a button. It’s like I can press the button and be present in whatever I’m doing or I can daydream and fantasize for as long as I like. It also lets me travel between my fantasy and reality so I can use my thoughts to my advantage.
For a really long time I hated that my brain worked differently from everyone else’s. It was frustrating when things that came easily to other people, were ridiculously difficult for me. For most of my life I didn’t have the words to explain what it was like in my head. It was impossible for me to organize my thoughts enough to express what was wrong and what I needed to fix it.
Now, my brain is my best tool. It’s my good friend, not my mortal enemy anymore. Turns out, thinking differently is a big advantage when working and living in a creative world (a.k.a not K-12).
In school, my brain made me frustrated to the point of crying. Now, my brain is one of my favorite things about myself.